


You Win Some, You Lose Some

by orphan_account



Series: Witcher of Light and Shadow [1]
Category: Blades of Light and Shadow (Visual Novel), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Crossover, Established Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Gwent (The Witcher), The Witcher AU, crossover AU, just two pals havin a good time, mentions of tyril & mc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:20:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24089545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The one where Mal and Nia get caught cheating at Gwent.
Relationships: Mal Volari & Nia Ellarious
Series: Witcher of Light and Shadow [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737934
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	You Win Some, You Lose Some

**Author's Note:**

> i'm planning on this being a thing where I just write snippets of stuff happening in this au. basically it's blades but in the witcher, inspired by @mellorax on tumblr, whose [blades witcher art](https://mellorax.tumblr.com/post/617280022784491520/toss-a-coin-to-your-witcher-someone-should) inspired me. you don't have to play the witcher to really understand or enjoy this. it's just gonna be the blades gang dicking around in some alternate fantasy setting. nothing really fancy to it. i also crossposted this to [my tumblr](https://sunmaidens.tumblr.com/post/617633353133424640/you-win-some-you-lose-some) if you want to check it out there!!

Mal and Nia had found themselves at your average village tavern. Warm, yellow light leaked from lanterns onto the wall. Raucous singing and cheering floated from table to table. Grey men slumped over half-drunk pints of ale. The air was heady, thick with sweat and drink; it sat heavily on Mal’s tongue and slithered cloyingly down his throat. They had one aim tonight--to fatten their pockets with riches abound--and the plan was quite simple, really: Nia would use her magic to distort the tavern's perception of the cards, she would win, and they would flee into the night newly wealthy. But first, they needed to suffer their mark: a single man.

“You sure you know how to play, princess?” 

Gwent wasn’t difficult to play by any means. In fact, Mal had always considered it easy to play, but frustratingly hard to master. On the surface, it was a strategy game: a game of strict planning, forethought and careful calculation. But a novice would soon be thrust into deep waters as it dissolved into stealth and trickery. Luckily for Mal, he was by no means a novice, and stealth and trickery came as naturally to him as breathing. He knew how to play, alright, and he knew how to play well. But Nia didn’t. Back at the high tower or what have you, as Nia told it, she and the other mages spent their free time in the library when they weren’t in the gardens, and in the kitchens when they weren’t in the library _ or _ the gardens. Nia didn’t have time for Gwent, and--right here, right now, with this burly man scowling expectantly at them--Mal didn’t have time to teach her. But none of that mattered. None of it at all. Because she wasn’t going to be playing. Well, yes she was, but not in a way that skill would count.

“Oh, she knows how to play, alright. Lost three scorch cards and a bloody medic to this one!”

He didn’t. But the man didn’t need to know that, did he?

Said man--a barrel of a man, really, with pink, puckered skin that cracked along his bald head, wide, flaring nostrils and a fist-sized, ginger beard--tilted his head in appraisal. Mal knew he wasn’t going to be an easy one, and he should have chosen someone weaker, someone more like the twiggy, flaxen-haired gentleman looking all skittish in the corner--you know, to ease Nia into her first time and all--but the challenge was half the fun, and getting away with it was a quarter. The last quarter? That rested upon the success of the other quarter: either the execution or the escape.

“We gonna play, or what?” Nia cocked her brow, eyes narrowed.  _ Damn _ . She could be downright menacing when she tried. Mal stifled a smirk and a tear-- _ his Nia, all grown up. _

The barrel-man snorted. “Yeah, we’ll play.” He hoisted his twine knapsack onto the weathered oak table, plunged his fist in and emerged with his Gwent deck. Monsters.  _ Fitting.  _ Nia’s were already splayed upside-down on the table--Northern realms, because anything else from an outsider around here would get you a mouthful of knuckles or worse. Teeth chattering, Nia cast a fleeting glance over to Mal.  _ Gods, she was more of a kit than kit herself.  _ Nonetheless, Mal met her apprehension with a reassuring smile, softer than his usual, and she turned back to barrel-man donning a cockier smirk than he could ever hope to muster.

If all went well, they’d go home hundreds richer with a new card added to their repertoire. If all failed… Mal was confident that he could outrun the whole tavern, but it wasn’t something he particularly  _ wanted  _ to do, and depending on the strength of the ale here, which Mal had a goblet of on the table, it might rule this place off for good. Mal brought the goblet to his lips--you know, for the sake of a concrete plan and all--and took a sip.  _ Oh boy _ . The barkeep didn’t even _ try _ for discretion as he polished a glass while eyeing Mal with a glower. So, under his watchful eye, Mal put up great resistance against every one of his senses, all of which were begging him to spit the drink out. There was  _ one  _ achievement the barkeep could add to his belt: the ale tasted more like piss than actual piss, and, yes, Mal had tasted actual piss.

Before Mal could think to do anything other than swish this piss-ale around in his mouth, barrel-man whistled at him. “Pretty boy, got a coin?” There was no other option but to swallow the piss-ale, so Mal gulped it all down in one. He was trying so hard not to think about the way the liquid stuck to his throat that a pain tore behind his eyes. Yet, ever the performer, he feigned a sated smile. Once the barkeep turned away--satisfied--his smile plummeted into a grimace. From his coin purse, Mal produced a single crown. Instead of placing it in the outstretched palm of the barrel-man, he pressed it into the table in front of Nia and straightened back up with a mocking smile: all glinting, white teeth. Barrel-man looked to be holding back a snarl, but settled on a grunt and, though his eyes still held the glistening impression of examination, he regarded Nia expectantly. _ He was most definitely not going to be easy.  _ “I’m falcon,” he said-- _ ever the gentleman in not letting the lady get first pick _ \--then he signalled for Nia to toss the coin. She steadied it on her thumb and flipped it. It was by no means a flimsy toss; the coin flew up, spun round and round so fast that it blurred, and landed with a last, defiant shudder before finally collapsing. Mal grinned, but the man only grunted again. “You first, then.”

Nia’s gaze roved slowly over each of her cards, her lips pursed in concentration. While Mal was struggling with the piss-ale, the two of them had sorted their decks. In the right hands--see:  _ Mal’s _ \--Nia’s could have been a winning one. But to novice players--see:  _ Nia _ \--it was  _ monstrous _ . Hells, three  _ Poor Fucking Infantry _ ? It was downright barbaric! Mal wanted to linger over her shoulder longer--not because he was interested in guiding her to victory, just because he was nosy like that--but barrel-man shot him a pointed glare and he nearly tripped over himself to step back an inch or two. Her deck was horrid, that was for sure, but that wasn’t what their success depended upon. No, it was  _ her _ .

Mal pulled out a seat at the table a fair distance between the two just as Nia plucked the first card from her deck. Melee, strength of five. Barrel-man hummed, an enigmatic sound, and if it made her nervous Nia dared show it. Rather, she kept her back straight and held her stare unflinchingly forward. Maybe it was the magic bringing that out in her--the magic she was employing here and now, the magic coursing through every fibre, every flake and every filament of her being. Maybe not. Whatever it was, Mal liked it. It impressed him. He wasn’t easy to impress. After a brief moment of silence, barrel-man smacked down his card on the table, then summoned three more of its kind in tow. On his melee row, fifteen points. Now, Mal didn’t mess with magic. Intrinsically, he  _ couldn’t _ mess with magic, not really. Unlike Nia, he wasn’t the rare breed of human born with that aptitude. He’d seen his fair share of such relics on his travels--dust-laden and winking alike--but the extent of his knowledge started and ended with ‘don’t touch them with your bare hands’. So he knew  _ of _ magic, yes, but he didn’t really  _ know it, _ didn’t  _ wield it _ \-- _ couldn’t _ wield it--so all he had, here, with the future rage of this tavern cracking at their heels and a noose’s embrace not so far behind, was trust.

And he kept that trust as Nia built to 15 and barrel-man built to 34. He kept that trust as Nia fumbled about with a spy card she had no notion of how to use and ended up drawing one of her _ Poor Fucking Infantry  _ instead of anything worthy. He kept that trust as barrel-man scorched Nia’s catapult and they launched into round two with Nia five cards down.

And then she scorched his dragons.

Barrel-man slammed down his cards and kicked out his chair from beneath him as he rose all thundering like a stormcloud. “Gods alive, you can’t bloody  _ do _ that!”

Mal laughed. Things were coming together: Nia was more cunning than he had given her credit for.“I think she just did, sire.”

“Yes, I believe I just did,” Nia whispered, wide eyes canopied by her long, auburn hair as she stared down at the cards in her hand.

His lip trembled and his pink face flushed red, and with his fists clenched at his sides barrel-man looked as though he was going to put up a fight, but he heaved himself back down in acquiescent silence and the moment breezed away on a sigh. The game continued like so: barrel-man inched slowly up to 20, Nia soared past 30, barrel-man crawled to 28, Nia sent him right back to 15, barrel-man jumped smugly to 40 and Nia--with a stoic face and perfect posture--flew to 89. The game ended like so: with barrel-man struggling against the palms of a pair of off-duty Nilfgaardians, spittle flying from his lips, skin looking ready to burst open from the pressure of his rage, and Mal inquiring ever-so politely after the crowns Nia so rightfully earned. The tavern had all turned to the source of the commotion, dropping their singing and conversation like hot coals. As expected with a scene like this--two smug-looking outsiders and two ‘fecking dirty black ones’ against one riled-up local--all the wrong gears began to shift in drunken minds. What was previously a petty dispute over a little game of Gwent turned to a vicious, seething mob in a building not nearly large nor sturdy enough to hold them all. Voices raised and swords were quickly drawn; the barkeep scuttled out just as he saw the glint of steel; and Mal didn’t think twice before swiping the coin purse from barrel-man’s belt, grabbing Nia’s hand and bolting out the way they came.

Dusk hit them just as they tumbled outside, the hastening breeze a welcomed change of pace from the honeyed air of the tavern. It blew Mal’s lungs wide open, but he couldn’t enjoy it for long. Just as he hoisted Nia up onto Roach, the mob spilt out from the tavern. Bottles, swords, knives, splintering planks of wood--anything they could get their hands on, they brandished as a weapon. When they made their charge, Nia tensed her hands around Mal’s middle, and they galloped out of there faster than Roach had ever gone before. (Okay, maybe not, because there was that time with the noonwraith, and that other time with the witch-hunters, but they  _ sped _ alright.) The mob dispersed as they left the village, picked off by their intoxication--those that didn’t faint, shrugged their shoulders and trudged back to the tavern for another pint and sing-song. Nonetheless, they swept away, wind shrieking all around them, and they only came to a stop after three minutes, when they reached a lake. Nia slid off Roach first. After her, Mal swung both legs over and landed on the ground with an unsteady  _ thunk _ . On all sides but one, the lake was framed by evergreens, and on its surface creased light shades of orange. Mal ambled over to the lakeside--a grassy embankment cast yellow by the setting sun--and sat down, shedding his outer layers and breathing a contented sigh. Only two sips of that piss-ale had his head swimming; he wondered just how those drunk bastards managed to keep their focus long enough to chase them out of that damn village.

“They’re locals--they’re used to it,” said Nia absently as she stroked Roach’s neck.  _ Huh, that’s true,  _ Mal thought. Then he furrowed his brow. Nia fished an apple out from Roach’s saddlebag and held it out to him. He obliged and munched, making slow work of it. When she felt Mal’s gaze on her back, Nia blushed redder than her hair and turned to face him. “Sorry. It’s still wearing off.”

“God, priestess, I’d hate for that thing to be permanent.” He laughed at himself.  _ Yep, he was drunk. _

Nia, though, kept the apple at Roach’s mouth and turned to look at him quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you know.”

“I don’t.”

“Then you don’t wanna know.”

“...Okay.” That was that.

They remained at the lake until dusk quavered out its final note--the last stroke of orange in the sky and the first speck of starlight, distant and white. In the silence, birdsong bloomed and wind shuddered through the trees, plucking the leaves like a harp. Fine mist rolled gently off the lake and into Mal’s chest, cleansing his throat on the way down. Quite literally, it was a breath of fresh air. With a high-pitched, melodic whistle that sent nature into hiding once more, Mal cleaved the quiet. “You know, priestess, I never took you for the conniving type.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have been so close-minded.” As quickly as she said the words, Nia cleared them from the air with a light cough and busied herself with whatever was in her hands--Mal couldn’t make it out from where she sat on the peripheries of his vision.

But,  _ gods-damned _ \--Mal wouldn’t let her forget her words that easily. “Gods.” He shook his head, grinning. “Full of surprises today, Nia.”

His response sat comfortably between them for a few seconds before Nia stiffened. She picked her way over to him, holding something behind her back. “Do you have room for another?”

Stunned into silence, Mal quirked his brow and watched as Nia revealed the item she had been hiding. A knapsack. Not just any, old knapsack--barrel-man’s knapsack.  _ Holy Gods.  _ “Gods a-fucking-bove, Nia! How?”

Mal was a bard, yes, Mal the Magnificent was his bard name. But before he was a bard he was a thief. Hells, he’d been thieving since he came out of the damn womb, literally!--the midwife had to pry his little, baby fingers off her titanium ring, and even then he wouldn’t stop grasping for it. (He’s since improved, of course--what decent thief goes for titanium?) In his later days of thieving, he didn’t need a thief name, some tacky little attempt at bolstering his own esteem; his  _ title _ \--Prince of Beggars--was more than sufficient. Mal was a more than  _ decent  _ thief--he was a master, a legend, the finest thief of them all--but not once in his thieving career had he ever felt as upstaged as when Nia presented to him that bloody twine knapsack.

Nia tossed it to him, and he caught it on instinct alone--his mind was suspended between thousands of questions and awe-struck blankness, and it showed in the dumb expression on his face. “When everyone was preparing to, well... kill us, I used magic to bring it closer and closer until it ended up in my hands. They probably won’t remember us…” She scrunched her lips to the side. “Probably.”

In a flurry of frenzied movement, Mal rifled through the bag. A dry dumpling. A full canteen of water. A handful of pungent herbs. Three fraying strips of scrap leather. And, gleaming in the last golden remnants of sunlight: “His whole deck?” Mal held the stack up to the sky as if it was a relic to be worshipped. Light broke across the topmost card and scattered blinking light across the crimson surface like scales on a wyvern. After moments of wide-eyed marvelling, he turned to Nia with frantic eyes and earnestness raw on his face. “Nia, I could kiss you.”

She laughed, a sweet and unfettered sound.

Moments passed by. Mal pocketed the deck just as a shiver scurried across his shoulders. Sudden drowsiness washed over him. “They won’t remember us. Just two sips of that shitty ale--”

“I thought it was...” Nia paused and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Piss-ale.”

Mal snorted.  _ Never thought he’d hear that from Nia _ . “Yeah, piss-ale. Just two sips of it and I’m… I…”  _ Gods,  _ this ale was really something. Must’ve been, to have Mal the Magnificent--Prince of Beggars--all heavy-limbed and droopy-eyed like this. He sprawled out on the grass, darkened by the disappearance of the sun, and nestled his head into the earth. Blades of grass grazed against his exposed neck--it felt like soft fingers there, tickling him--and he breathed in the bracing, dusk air once more.

Nia shook his shoulder gently, and Mal exaggerated the touch, wriggling around. “Mal, you can’t fall asleep--we need to get back! Tyril will worry, you know how he is.”

He giggled. Her voice was faint and tender, and he wished to fashion it into a cushion so he could prop it against his ears and sink deep into it. “I’m already in dreamland!” Eyes half-closed, Mal hummed a brief but merry tune, directing an invisible orchestra with his hands all the while. He let his eyes lower fully and threaded his fingertips through the grass. “Goodbye, priestess…”


End file.
